Chapter 562: You Win, Konoha

"Kakashi! Hurry! Give me more! I need more!"

Might Guy caught the fresh green bodysuit Lee tossed over and stared at Kakashi with unmistakable desperation.

Shira practiced the Seven Heavens Breathing Method, so he had chosen to draw inspiration from Kakashi's scent—and even Kakashi's exhaled breath—by taking it straight into his lungs.

So what was Guy supposed to do?

First, between the sweat produced by the Seventh Gate and the heart involved in the Eighth Gate, Guy naturally chose the Seventh.

After all, opening the Eighth Gate meant dying.

Self-imposed rules were one thing, but Might Guy was not an idiot. He was not about to throw his life away over a friendly competition.

…

Actually, why did that sound suspiciously like something Rock Lee might have done during the Chūnin Exams?

Anyway, Seven Heavens versus Seven Gates.

Both had the number seven.

That was fair enough.

After exchanging taijutsu ideas with Shira over the past few days, Guy had developed a decent understanding of the Seven Heavens Breathing Method.

By using a special breathing pattern to absorb enormous amounts of oxygen, the technique progressed through three stages, with the Third Activation currently being Shira's strongest state.

Maybe the Seven Heavens Breathing Method even had an undiscovered "Eighth Heaven," where the user fought while breathing pure oxygen and then immediately died of oxygen poisoning afterward.

Who knew?

In any case, Guy intended to give everything he could without crossing the line of a friendly spar.

And for that, he needed more of Kakashi's sweat.

Unfortunately, the Kakashi in front of him was only a shadow clone.

Guy had already dragged him through so many laps that the clone had produced a great deal of sweat.

If Guy pushed him any harder, the clone would literally pop.

That was not an exaggeration.

The shadow clone was genuinely close to bursting.

Fortunately, the real Kakashi arrived at exactly that moment.

After receiving the memories from the clone Shira had destroyed and screaming inside the tent, Kakashi spent a moment processing what he had just experienced.

Then he suddenly remembered something.

Guy still had another one of his shadow clones.

Kakashi had already noticed that Guy was deliberately copying Shira.

He simply had not pointed it out because the whole purpose of giving them shadow clones was to make the two distract each other and leave him alone.

But now…

"Guy! Yamero! Stop!"

The moment Kakashi arrived, he heard Guy shouting bizarre things like "Give me more!"

More of what?!

Kakashi panicked so badly that he shouted for Guy to stop before he had even figured out what they were doing.

"Kakashi! Perfect timing! Give it to me! I still need more!"

Guy rushed forward with the green bodysuit and wiped away all the cold sweat Kakashi had broken into after receiving his clone's memories.

Kakashi froze.

Then he watched Guy throw several sweat-soaked bodysuits into the air.

"Eight Gates Released Formation—Seventh Gate, Gate of Wonder, open!"

"Neji! Lee! I'm counting on you!"

Guy erupted with chakra and opened the Seventh Gate.

A violent blast of air exploded outward, blowing sand away from the surrounding ground.

"Got it! Leave it to us!"

Lee nodded vigorously and turned eagerly toward Neji.

"Neji, let's go!"

"…"

Neji stared at him.

"…Fine."

He was already regretting coming back.

If he had known this was going to happen, he would have stayed much farther away and watched from a safe distance.

Instead, he had returned at exactly the wrong time and been drafted into doing something unbelievably embarrassing.

But Guy-sensei had already opened the Seventh Gate.

Neji could hardly let him waste it.

"Front Lotus—!"

"Eight Trigrams Palms Revolving Heaven—!"

Lee and Neji each grabbed one end of the airborne bodysuits and began spinning at high speed.

The green fabric twisted into ropes.

Then tightened.

Then finally tore apart.

And during the process, every drop of Kakashi's sweat absorbed into the fabric rained down onto Might Guy below, who was still burning with the Seventh Gate.

"Watch closely!"

Guy roared.

"This is the burning-hot combination technique born from the passion between Kakashi and me—

"Daytime Tiger!"

He thrust his fist toward the sea.

A massive compressed-air tiger blasted across the water—

Carrying with it an overwhelmingly concentrated smell of sweat.

"Disgusting."

Hoshigaki Nanami vomited on the spot.

You win.

Konoha, you win!

Could Konoha shinobi somehow become even more revolting than this?

There was only one thing to be grateful for.

Guy apparently did not know that sweat and urine had somewhat similar compositions.

Otherwise, he might have tried replacing the sweat with something else to increase the dosage.

"Ahhh! That hurts!"

After closing the Seventh Gate, Guy collapsed onto the ground and groaned in pain.

"Uh…"

Kakashi finally snapped back to reality and hurried over.

"Guy, what were you thinking?! You know perfectly well what opening the Seventh Gate does to your body! Why would you—"

"It's fine, Kakashi."

Guy gave him a reassuring smile.

"I already planned for this.

"Your subordinates are here, remember?"

"My subordinates?"

"Kakashi-sensei, move aside! We're coming through!"

Sakura's voice suddenly came from behind them.

It turned out Tenten's earlier disappearance had been because she went to fetch Sakura and Ino.

Both Sakura and Ino had been studying medical ninjutsu under Tsunade.

The problem was that as the shinobi world gradually became more peaceful, the number of badly injured patients had dropped dramatically.

These days, Sakura and Ino spent most of their time treating ordinary fevers and colds.

They were rapidly transforming from battlefield medics into outpatient clinic doctors.

Even Tenten, as an enthusiastic bystander, could no longer stand watching their skills go unused.

So she had thought of them.

As far as Tenten was concerned, whether two taijutsu specialists were sparring or simply training, injuries—both internal and external—were practically inevitable.

Bringing Sakura and Ino over would allow them to treat those injuries while improving their medical ninjutsu at the same time.

Before leaving, Tenten had even explained the idea to Guy.

Guy had responded by giving her an enthusiastic thumbs-up and his full approval.

That was precisely why he had opened the Seventh Gate without hesitation.

Getting injured through the Seventh Gate was not merely for his own training.

He was also providing valuable medical practice material for Konoha's younger generation!

So technically, this did not violate his self-imposed rules at all.

"Huh? Sakura-chan? Why are you here?"

Naruto, who had been watching from the side, immediately brightened when he saw Sakura and bounced over with an enormous grin.

Like a fly spotting something irresistible.

"Don't bother us. We're treating Guy-sensei right now."

Sakura did not even turn around.

Her tone was unusually serious.

"This concerns both Guy-sensei's health and the improvement of our medical ninjutsu."

Ino clicked her tongue.

Could Naruto seriously not see her standing right there?

Whatever.

Maybe being invisible to him was actually a blessing.

"What?! No!"

Naruto's expression changed dramatically.

"Bushy-Brows Sensei, don't die on us!!!"

Tears instantly burst from his eyes as he threw himself onto Might Guy.

"Hiss—AAAGH! Naruto, what are you doing?!"

Guy screamed as Naruto landed directly on his already injured body.

"You idiot, Naruto! What the hell are you doing?!"

Sakura finally snapped.

She spun around and punched Naruto away.

Naruto flew off and eventually got back to his feet, clutching his face with a wounded expression.

"But didn't you say you wanted to improve your medical ninjutsu?"

He looked genuinely confused.

"I thought the more patients a medical ninja kills, the better their medical ninjutsu becomes!

"Bushy-Brows Sensei was about to become experience points for you!"

"What kind of bullshit logic is that?!"

Ino could not stop herself from swearing.

This was the first time in her life she had ever heard anyone claim that a doctor became more skilled by killing more patients.

If that were true, exactly how many people had Tsunade killed?

"It was written in a book!"

Naruto immediately straightened up with absolute confidence.

"If it's written in a book, how could it be fake?"

Recently, after some encouragement from Konohamaru, Naruto had actually started reading books in preparation for becoming Hokage.

For once in his life, he had been seriously trying to improve himself and absorb more knowledge.

"…"

Could books contain false information?

As a devoted reader of several novels—

And the nominal author of more than a few of them—

Hatake Kakashi had quite a lot he could say on that subject.